Leonidas
Leonidas is a giant assault mech developed by the United States Army, it serves as General Ironside's super unit and is currently the most powerful unit in Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour: Contra, and is equivalent to the Shogun Executioner from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. Description Unlike all other super units, Leonidas is too big to be built by a War Factory, instead it needs to be built by a Dozer like a structure. You can build Leonidas if you have reached Rank 5 and built your ICBM silo. Leonidas consists of a giant turret serving as the upper body mounted on a quadrupedal platform. The mech appears to be powered by a highly advanced cold fusion reactor, judging from the various control rods protruding from its engine. Leonidas is armed with a variety of deadly weapons: * Two high caliber cannons, for attacking ground units and structures. * A triple barrelled laser cannon that fires off a continuous laser blast, for attacking ground units and structures. * Two Patriot missile batteries. One mounted under the turret's "chin" and the other mounted on top of the two cannons, the former is for ground attacking and the latter can engage both air and ground. * A quad anti-air machine gun turret, mounted on top of the main turret. With the power of all these weapons combined, Leonidas can make short work of pretty much every unit, from basic infantry, to super heavy tanks like Overlords and Mammoths. It can single handedly take out any super unit like the Zhu Rong or Karkadann in a one on one combat. Most artillery don't pose much threat either, as Leonidas' lasers and cannons have very long firing range. And if all of that isn't bad enough, Leonidas' durability will make it borderline unstoppable. A test was conducted by YouTuber F12 Cyberforce, in which he used: * The Particle Cannon * The Tomahawk Storm * The ICBM * Level 3 A-10 Strike * Carpet Bombing * High Explosive Bomb * EMP Bomb against the Leonidas (WITHOUT Composite Armor upgrade), and only managed to disable it and take out around 50% of its health. How To Destroy It? Leonidas is the final hurdle every player must face should he/she wish to defeat General Ironside. Its formidable firepower and nigh unbreakable armor makes it a daunting, but not impossible task. * The simplest and most direct method is brute force, Leonidas will not appear until all of Ironside's production facilities are destroyed, so simply eliminate most of Ironside's base and use the calm before the storm to build up an army of your best units and reload your super weapons. * A shapeless blob of tanks is not as effective as tanks combined with artillery, as the tanks in the back of the formation won't be able to do anything except wait for their turn to get pulverized. * Leonidas is highly resistant, but NOT immune, to EMP. Be warned that the Leonidas is IMMUNE TO ECM, as it's a considered a super weapon instead of a simple vehicle. * Black Lotus can deactivate it, but it works for about 10-15 seconds so you'll need her on standby to disable it again and again. * Leonidas' AI is flawed, when it's surrounded by enemy units, it will become confused and will simply stand there and do nothing like it's experiencing a heroic BSOD. So rushing the mech with your best tanks might just do the trick. Leonidas will either appear from the north east or from the north west, so before you're ready to face it, station a battalion at each of the possible spawn locations. Assessment Pros: * Contra's most powerful super unit * The toughest unit in the game, literally a "one mech army". * Extremely powerful weapons. * Effective against everything. * Long firing range. * Extremely durable. Can be made even more durable with Composite Armor upgrade. * Can be upgraded with drones to increase effectiveness. * Detects stealth. * Repaired very quickly by the War Factory. * Can crush any unit by simply walking over it, doesn't crush any allied units. * Can attack multiple units at once. * Surprisingly mobile for such an enormous mech. * Once it has started construction, it'll be difficult to stop the process, as Leonidas is extremely durable and it shields the dozer that's building it underneath its body. * As a super unit, and more importantly as an unmanned super unit, it cannot be hijacked or depiloted. Cons: * Outrageously expensive ($40,000) * Excruciatingly long build time (7 minutes) * Not exactly fast. * Gains veterancy extremely slowly, you'll likely have to demolish an entire enemy base to gain just one rank. * A very late game unit, requires all three of General Ironside's super weapon to build. * Not very effective against jets, due to the slow traversal speed of its turret and long reload time of its missiles. * Stealth detection range is quite short, so it may not react fast enough to stealthed suicide units. * Only one can exist of one player, regardless of Tournament mode. * Vulnerable against constantly re-stationed artillery vehicles. * Can be disabled by EMP and Black Lotus. Quotes The Leonidas' current quotes are hard to understand because they're heavily distorted. However they will be replaced by a new voiceset in the next version. When Selected * (Mechanical rumble) When Ordered to Move * (Sound of a weapon being reloaded) * (Deep, digitally distorted reply) * (Deep, slightly longer digitally distorted reply) When Ordered to Attack * (High pitched digitally distorted shouting) Trivia * Leonidas means "Son of the Lion" in Greek; it is named after Leonidas Ist, the Warrior-King of a city-state known as Sparta. The Spartan king died in 480 B.C. at the Battle of Thermopylae, along with 300 other warriors, against the overwhelming Persian army, led by Prince Xerxes Ist. * A Fallout Brotherhood of Steel emblem can be found on the mech's "forehead". Category:USA Arsenals Category:USA Structures Category:Super Unit